Have you ever delivered a well-executed fart joke and someone made a snotty comment about how your fart joke is a sign of civilization’s decline?

Probably, if you hang out with fun-hating dickwads.

Farts are funny. As Louis C.K. so perfectly pointed out during a visit to The Daily Show:

“You don’t have to be smart to laugh at farts, but you have to be stupid not to.”

Farts are funny, will always be funny, and, judging by these ancient Japanese fart scrolls brought to our attention by Tofugu.com, have always been funny.

The scrolls go by the name of He-Gassen, which means “Fart Battle,” which is the potential title for a movie that I would pay to watch many times over. The scrolls feature various Japanese men and women attacking each other with farts in ways so unique I’m genuinely surprised we haven’t seen any of them unintentionally ripped-off in Adam Sandler movies.

The scrolls date back to the Edo period, which ran from 1603 to 1868.

I can go on and on about these Fart Battle scrolls, but why bother? They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and below all these words I’m typing are a bunch of pictures of Japanese dudes farting on each other long before Japan was known by westerners for producing weird game shows and general insanity.

Pictured: General Insanity

So, if the dictum holds true, there has to be thousands and thousands of words about farts being spoken by these pictures. So, I’ll just shut up and allow you to enjoy the art and majesty of the Fart Battle.

Quick question: is this guy farting at a cat, or farting out a cat? This is the best analysis of art I will ever be able to muster.